Supreme Court Of the United States Rules Against Lawless White House Plan To Ban Deporting Illegal Aliens

Lawyers, clients and court watchers stream down the front steps after arguments at the US Supreme Court.
Photo: Reuters

[From article]
A tie vote by the Supreme Court is blocking President Barack Obama’s immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.
The justices’ one-sentence opinion on Thursday effectively kills the plan for the duration of Obama’s presidency.
A tie vote sets no national precedent but leaves in place the ruling by the lower court. In this case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans said the Obama administration lacked the authority to shield up to 4 million immigrants from deportation and make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress.
Texas led 26 Republican-dominated states in challenging the program Obama announced in November 2014. Congressional Republicans also backed the states’ lawsuit.

http://nypost.com/2016/06/23/supreme-court-kills-obamas-immigration-plan/

Supreme Court kills Obama’s immigration plan
By Associated Press
New York Post
June 23, 2016 | 10:53am

Liberal Double Standard Raises Its Head Again With Trump Campaign

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel

As one more example of how language is distorted by politicians and journalists, this issue indicates that it is acceptable for some politicians to use ethnicity and race for their advantage. But victims of special privileges for some cannot point out the abuses. Once again, perceived hate speech and bias are more important than violations of law. The misguided statement of Paul Ryan shows how nonsensical the ideas of special privileges have become. Complaints about perceived bias of a judge is attacked as racist. Since when is hispanic a race? One more reason why Ryan is not fit to be House Speaker. The White House shows it is acting presidential (Ahem!)  by using his office to attack a candidate for president. More evidence of the deception of this White House exhibiting bias in everything it does. In one case a judge's ability to be impartial was questioned because he was a member of a golf club that did not admit women. U.S. Senator Chuck "You" Schumer  (D-NY) established a criteria for judges who must support the Roe vs. Wade decision.



[From article]
Trump has a perfect right to be angry about the judge’s rulings and to question his motives. Second, there are grounds for believing Trump is right.
On May 27, Curiel, at the request of The Washington Post, made public plaintiff accusations against Trump University — that the whole thing was a scam. The Post, which Bob Woodward tells us has 20 reporters digging for dirt in Trump’s past, had a field day.
[. . .]
what did Trump do to be smeared by a bipartisan media mob as a “racist”?
He attacked the independence of the judiciary, we are told.
But Presidents Jefferson and Jackson attacked the Supreme Court, and FDR, fed up with New Deal programs being struck down, tried to “pack the court” by raising the number of justices to 15 if necessary.
Abraham Lincoln leveled “that eminent tribunal” in his first inaugural, and once considered arresting Chief Justice Roger Taney.
[. . .]
The judiciary is independent, but that does not mean that federal judges are exempt from the same robust criticism as presidents or members of Congress.
Obama himself attacked the Citizens United decision in a State of the Union address, with the justices sitting right in front of him.
[. . .]
Apparently, it is now not only politically incorrect, but, in Newt Gingrich’s term, “inexcusable,” to bring up the religious, racial or ethnic background of a judge, or suggest this might influence his actions on the bench.
[. . .]
Does Newt think that when LBJ appointed Thurgood Marshall, ex-head of the NAACP, to the Supreme Court, he did not think Marshall would bring his unique experience as a black man and civil rights leader to the bench?
[. . .]
When Obama named Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, a woman of Puerto Rican descent who went through college on affirmative action scholarships, did Obama think this would not influence her decision when it came to whether or not to abolish affirmative action?
[. . .]
There are reasons why defense lawyers seek “changes of venue” and avoid the courtrooms of “hanging judges.”
When Obama reflexively called Sgt. Crowley “stupid” after Crowley’s 2009 encounter with that black professor at Harvard, and said of Trayvon Martin, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” was he not speaking as an African-American, as well as a president?
[. . .]
But does anyone think that if Obama appointed a Muslim to the Supreme Court, the LGBT community would not be demanding of all Democratic Senators that they receive assurances that the Muslim judge’s religious views on homosexuality would never affect his court decisions, before they voted to put him on the bench?
[. . .]
And the Democrats who tore [Clement] Haynsworth (Nixon's Supreme Court appointee) to pieces did so because they feared he would not repudiate his Southern heritage and any and all ideas and beliefs associated with it.
[. . .]
The most depressing thing about this episode is to see Republicans rushing to stomp on Trump, to show the left how well they have mastered their liberal catechism.

http://buchanan.org/blog/donald-la-raza-judge-125323

The Donald & The La Raza Judge
Tuesday - June 7, 2016 at 1:01 am
Patrick J, Buchanan

* * *

[From article]
The federal judge presiding over the Trump University class action lawsuit is a member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, a group that while not a branch of the National Council of La Raza, has ties to the controversial organization, which translates literally “The Race.”
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who has been criticized by Donald Trump as a “hater” appointed by President Obama who should be recused from the case, listed his membership in the “La Raza Lawyers of San Diego” on a judicial questionnaire he filled out when he was selected to be a federal judge. He was named in a brochure as a member of the selection committee for the organization’s 2014 Annual Scholarship Fund Dinner & Gala. Meanwhile, the San-Diego based law firm representing the plaintiffs in the Trump University case, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, was listed as a sponsor of the event.



WND reported the San Diego firm paid $675,000 to the Clintons for speeches, and the firm’s founder is a wealthy San Diego lawyer who served a two-year sentence in federal prison for his role in a kickback scheme to mobilize plaintiffs for class-action lawsuits.
While critics of Trump have argued that the San Diego La Raza Lawyers’ association is not affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, consider the following:
The San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of California, affiliated with the Chicano/Latino Bar Association of California.
On the website of the La Raza Lawyers Association of California, at the bottom of the “Links & Affiliates Page,” the National Council of La Raza is listed.
The website of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is joint-listed as San Diego’s Latino/Latina Bar Association.



On the “endorsements” page, the combined website lists the National Council of La Raza as part of the “community,” along with the Hispanic National Bar Association,, a group that emerged with a changed name from the originally formed La Raza National Lawyers Association and the La Raza National Bar Association tracing its origin back to 1971.
Further, while the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association and the National Council of La Raza are legally separate incorporated entities, the two groups appear to have an affiliation that traces back to the emergence of MEChA, the Moviemento Estudiantil Chicanos de Atzlán.
MEChA is a 1960s radical separatist student movement in California that espoused the mythical Aztec idea of a “nation of Aztlán,” comprising much of the southwestern United States, including California.
As David Horowitz points out on his website Discover the Networks that La Raza, Spanish for “the race,” also has roots in the early 1960s with a “united front” organization, the National Organization for Mexican American Services, NOMAS. The group initially was funded by the Ford Foundation, and subsequently by George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
In 1968, the Southwest Council of La Raza was organized with Ford Foundation funding. In 1972, the group changed its name to the National Council of La Raza and opened an office in Washington, D.C.

http://www.wnd.com/2016/06/trump-u-judges-group-tied-to-national-council-of-laraza/ JUDGE,

LAW FIRM BRINGING TRUMP U CASE BOTH TIED TO LA RAZA Curiel awarded scholarship to illegal immigrant
Jerome R. Corsi
June 6, 2016

 * * *



[From 2009 article]

In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”
In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.
[. . .]
a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.” She then immediately adds: “And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know.”
[. . .]
Judge Sotomayor has given several speeches about the importance of diversity. But her 2001 remarks at Berkeley, which were published by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, went further, asserting that judges’ identities will affect legal outcomes.
“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”
[. . .]
“Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see,” she said.
Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor and an adviser to Mr. Obama, said Judge Sotomayor’s remarks were appropriate. Professor Ogletree said it was “obvious that people’s life experiences will inform their judgments in life as lawyers and judges” because law is more than “a technical exercise,” citing Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous aphorism: “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html?_r=0

A Judge’s View of Judging Is on the Record
By CHARLIE SAVAGE

MAY 14, 2009
The New York Times

Congressional District Apportionment SCOTUS Decision Helps Restore Democracy

[From article]
In Evenwel v Abbott, the recent Texas legislative apportionment case, the plaintiffs argued that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that the boundaries of legislative districts be drawn so as to equalize numbers of CVAPs (“Citizens of Voting Age Population”), not total population.
A unanimous Supreme Court rejected the argument and upheld Texas’ use of total population. The Court refused to go further, and left open the question whether Texas could, consistent with the Constitution, use CVAP if it so chose.
[. . .]
In a series of cases starting in 1962, the Supreme Court has laid down as constitutional mandate the principle of “one person, one vote”, which means that state legislative districts must be equally apportioned. There can be no more rotten boroughs, with legislative districts remaining frozen despite massive shifts on population.
A similar rule applies to U.S. congressional districts, which are also drawn by state legislatures. (For arcane legal reasons, the standards applicable to congressional districts are not quite the same as those for states, but to date the practical consequences of this have been minor.)
However, the metric for judging equality has never been entirely clear. Some cases refer to equality of populations, some to equality of voters. As the Court noted in Evenwel, every quotation mined out of the law books referring to equal numbers of voters can be balanced by one referring to equal populations.
The last time the Court addressed the matter directly was in 1966, when it said that the states have considerable choice in the matter, as long as racial discrimination is not involved. “[No] decision [of] this Court suggested that the States are required to include aliens, transients, short-term or temporary residents, or persons denied the vote for conviction of crime, in the apportionment base” -- Burns (but use of registered voters as the base would be suspect because it is subject to political manipulation).
Since Burns, lower courts have split, with the Fourth and Fifth Circuits ruling that the selection of the appropriate population base is up to the state, and the Ninth saying that it must be done by total population. The district court decision in Evenwel said: “[This is] a choice that the Supreme Court has unambiguously left to the states...”
The uncertainty about the appropriate population base could remain unresolved for half a century because it did not matter much. The differences in result from using total population as compared with the alternative of CVAP was not large enough to justify serious wrangling.
In consequence, according to the brief filed by the U.S. Solicitor General, all states currently treat total population as the proper metric – equality means equal numbers of human bodies in each legislative district.
Over the past couple of decades, two factors have made the question worth wrangling over.
The first, and most obvious, factor is immigration, especially illegal immigration. Aliens tend to concentrate, so counting them in the population base for purposes of legislative apportionment has the effect of diluting the votes of people in other districts.
The growing imbalances were described in an amicus brief in Evenwel by the city of Yakima, WA. The city has 91,000 people. Latinos constitute 41% of the total population but only 22.74% of the CVAP. In addition, only 54.51% of adult Latinos are eligible to vote, whereas 99.63% of non-Latino Whites and 97.65% of African American adults are eligible.
Consequences for California were described 25 years ago, in Garza, in which equalizing populations meant that “District 1 has 707,651 eligible voters while District 3 has 1,098,663.”
Clearly, the choice between total population and CVAP is important, and becoming more so.
The immigration issue interacts with factor number two, which is enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Enforcement is the hands of Social Justice Warriors, plucked from various lefty non-profits, so both the choice of targets and the remedies are selected with a heavy racialist thumb on the scale. In the Yakima situation, the remedies for alleged violations of the voting right of Latinos require the city to create serious imbalances in CVAP numbers, and these are treated as irrelevant because, to DOJ, only total population counts, whatever the Supreme Court may have said in the past.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has twice punted on the question of total population vs CVAP. In 2001, it turned down Chen despite Justice Thomas’ dissenting comment that “as long as we sustain the one-person, one-vote principle, we have an obligation to explain to States and localities what it actually means”. In 2012, the Court declined to hear another case raising the issue (Lepak), without a peep from any justice, and there the matter rested until Evenwel.
Speculating on the Court’s motivations is always chancy, but the justices may well have regarded it as a dormant issue. While the precedents contained many statements that a state could use CVAP, no state is actually doing so. The Court may have decided not to bother with the question unless some state actually picked up on it, or it became unavoidable in the context of the VRA,
Such passiveness is readily understandable as a legal matter, but it had important political consequences.
Although a state’s right to choose CVAP was protected (probably) as a matter of formal legal doctrine, it seems safe to say that in the public mind the debate had ceased. “One person, one vote” was assumed to mean that populations must be equal, and not “one CVAP, one vote.”
To use a formulation currently in vogue, the “Overton Window”, the range of options considered acceptable for public discussion, was closing, even as the interaction of immigration and the VRA was adding urgency to the question, and even as, as in the Yakima situation, lower courts were not giving serious consideration to the claims of CVAP.
The Evenfel litigation was a response to this legal/political situation.
The case was sponsored by the Project on Fair Representation, which is involved in a number of apportionment and VRA cases. The Project was also involved in Lepak, which failed to make it to the Supreme Court, and Evenwel was filed by the same lawyers. Only this time they used a provision of the U.S. Code that a constitutional challenge to an apportionment scheme goes to a three judge court, and, from there, it is appealed to the Supreme Court, which must hear it unless the issue raised can be classified as “insubstantial”. Plaintiffs lost in district court, and the case went up.
Three positions were presented in the Supreme Court.
Plaintiffs argued that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to use CVAP. This position had zero chance of winning, because the Progressive justices were certain to oppose it, and even the conservatives were most unlikely to go beyond the position that a state had a choice.
The second position was presented by Texas: that its choice of population was constitutional, but so would be a choice of CVAP. This is the language of Burns, and is the view of courts of appeal, except the Ninth Circuit. However, it is not the standard that is being applied in VRA cases.
Almost certainly, the plaintiffs knew they had no shot at their maximum position, and the real goal was to get a Supreme Court re-affirmation of the Burns endorsement of the states’ right to choose so as to restore it as a live option in political discussion. This was a realistic hope before the death of Justice Scalia, but after that the chance of five votes was small, though not impossible.
The U.S. Solicitor General endorsed Texas’ argument that the use of population is constitutional, and urged the Court to rest its decision on this ground.
But he also presented a third option -- that states are required to use population and must ignore CVAP. However, this was not pushed because its resolution was not necessary to the case. The SG also argued that the VRA can over-ride a state choice to use CVAP, another issue that did not have to be decided.
The argument that population is the constitutionally-demanded metric is a clear foreshadowing of what is about to become Progressive dogma. The theory is that all inhabitants (and the Fourteenth Amendment protects all persons, not just citizen) are entitled to representation, so the “one person, one vote” standard demands protection even of non-voting populations. (This is the Ninth Circuit view.) This argument quickly morphs into a demand that illegal aliens have “one person, one vote” rights, but the dedicated Progressive is unlikely to be phased by this.
So what did the case gain, or lose, for the cause of constitutional government?
On the negative side, the four Progressives could well be ready and eager to say that CVAP has no place in apportionment decisions and the states must use total population. One must put a question mark on this, though, because it is easy to create reductio ad absurdum hypotheticals in which a few voters and many aliens get to dominate local elections, and even the Progressives might quail at this.
On the positive side, the Overton Window has been widened by the publicity given the case and by the clear SCOTUS statement that a state is not at present forbidden to use CVAP. It has also been widened by the two fine concurrences in Evenwel, by Alito and Thomas, addressing the constitutional issues and policy choices involved. (One should add to the reading list Judge Kozinski’s dissent in Garza and Judge Garwood’s opinion in Chen.)
Given the current prominence of immigration concerns, the widened window means that state legislators might well be persuaded to take a second look at current laws that require the use of total population, and the concurrences provide a solid foundation for political discussion.
Also on the positive side, it will be difficult for the Department of Justice and the courts to ignore CVAP in fashioning VRA remedies. If the states have the right to choose a population base, and if that right is protected as an attribute of state sovereignty, then DOJ cannot automatically reject the use of CVAP. And if it does so, then its VRA cases will be delayed for years while the matter is appealed once again.
The issues are complex, not only legally but morally and practically, and serious arguments can be made for either standard. As the concurrences note, they involve fundamental questions about the nature of democracy, the meaning of representation, the relationship of state and federal governments, and the interpretation of the Fourteenth and Tenth Amendments.
It may well be that the best solutions involve a blend of total population and CVAP, and the great benefit of Evenwel is that it leaves it open for states to experiment to fund the right mix.
But the big thing is that the Overton Window is open again, so on balance it was a good day for democracy.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/emevenwel_v_abbottem_a_good_day_for_democracy.html

April 10, 2016
Evenwel v Abbott: A Good Day for Democracy
By James V. DeLong

President Has Duty. Not Senate. Lawsuit Cannot Compel Senate To Act

Is this a SNL routine proposal? Is it about lawsuits, revenge, made up duties? Evans does not say. There are several US legal actions pending regarding the ACA. Article II, Section 2 of Constitution provides a duty for the President, not for the Senate. Read it and weep. Misguided argument would make some sense if the White House did not ignore regularly the Constitution and his duties, in other areas. Why not encourage the President to use executive orders to make SCOTUS appointments? Both President and Vice President argued against making such nominations/appointments during elections and recesses of the Senate. How did Democratic Senators treat the nominations of Judge Robert Bork and Judge Clarence Thomas? Talk about "impoliteness, discourtesy, and political grandstanding." Teehee. BTW a lawsuit cannot compel the Senate to act. This professor emeritus needs to read some law and the Constitution.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160324/guest-commentary-taste-of-their-own-medicine

Guest commentary: A taste of their own medicine
By Martin G. Evans
Posted Mar. 24, 2016 at 3:06 PM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Can Government Tax You For "Being?"

[From article]
Early in his article, [January 25, 2016 The Weekly Standard, “Unchecked Power” Eric] Felton
examines the two big ObamaCare cases and what they mean for further concentration of power in the federal government. These cases illustrate how “the tax code can be used to sidestep the Constitution's restraints on Congress.” In NFIB v. Sebelius, the Court ratified an “unchecked power” to tax; Chief Justice Roberts “wasn’t worried, it seems, about opening a vast domain of congressional power by allowing Washington to tax the infinite number of things that people don’t do.”
And in King v. Burwell, Felton quotes Justice Kennedy during oral arguments: “It seems to me a drastic step for us to say that the department of Internal Revenue and its director can make this call one way or the other when there are -- what? -- billions of dollars of subsidies involved here.”
[. . .]
Hear, hear! But just as regulations can be dressed up as taxes, taxes can be disguised as something other than taxes. This may be a minority opinion, but one of the problems with Roberts’ NFIB decision is not that he created a tax where none had existed, but that he failed to recognize the tax that was already right there in the law: the mandate to buy health insurance. Yes, insurance premiums are paid to private companies, but in ObamaCare the payment of premiums is required by the government in furtherance of a government objective. That seems like a tax. So Roberts legislated from the bench, and rewrote the law.
On July 6, 2012, shortly after the decision in NFIB was handed down, The Wall Street Journal ran “A Short History of Congress's Power to Tax,” a short opinion piece by historian Paul Moreno. It doesn’t seem to be still available at the Journal, nonetheless I found it here. Concerning ObamaCare’s individual mandate, Moreno writes that to “any sentient adult, it looks like a ‘capitation’ or head tax,” and he laments that the Court’s dissenters didn’t explore that point. Moreno covers some of the same ground as Felton, including the same court cases. And concerning NFIB: “Justice Roberts has confirmed that there are no limits to regulatory taxation as long as the revenue is deposited in the U.S. Treasury.”
But what if Roberts had found that the mandate to buy health insurance was indeed a tax? That wouldn’t be any more incoherent than finding that the penalty is a tax. If government can define anything as a tax, then the mandated payment of insurance premiums can be a tax, too.
From the standpoint of law, language, and logic, the rulings in NFIB and King aren’t a total disaster, but they’ll suffice until the total disaster rolls in. The big reason to repeal Obamacare is not just that it is awful law and economics, but that the Court ratified it with very bad decisions, creating very sobering precedents.
[. . .]
And that is precisely why Americans needs to amend the Constitution to limit, i.e. to check, the government’s power to tax. [. . .]
Government may have taken a pass for now on taxing our being, but our tax system can make one wonder just how free we Americans really are.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/the_unchecked_power_to_tax.html

February 23, 2016
The ‘Unchecked Power’ to Tax
By Jon N. Hall

Supreme Court Nominee Is A Fool's Errand

[From article]
[Marc] Thiessen asked the very cogent question, "Who could possibly want to be that nominee?" He noted that whoever it might be has already been put on notice that it is, in effect, a judicial suicide mission and likened that person to a kamikaze pilot. As soon as Thiessen spoke, I realized he had neatly and accurately encapsulated the situation facing the White House right now into two words: kamikaze mission.
[. . .]
On the other hand, if Obama puts forward a sacrificial and minimally qualified candidate who might be willing to don the silk headscarf of sacrifice and volunteer to go down in flames for fifteen minutes of footnote fame, then the Republicans can point self-righteously to those absent qualifications as sufficient reason for grimly blowing the ambitious aspirant from the skies of fleeting legal glory.
From a political history perspective, Thiessen nailed it; it's a kamikaze mission, and Barry will have to find a fool to fly it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/barack_obamas_kamikaze_justice.html

February 24, 2016
Barack Obama's kamikaze justice
By Russ Vaughn

Recent History of Democratic Party Supreme Court Appointment Hate Campaigns

[From article]
However, if the Democrats stick to principles they would honor their own Senate Resolution 334 which urges no SCOTUS recess appointments. The likelihood of that occurrence is about on par with Bill Clinton honoring his marriage vows.
With decades of practice, the Democrats have mastered the art using the judiciary for agenda advancement and they play to win, no holds barred. Republicans still believe their Senatorial opponents are gentlemen who play by Robert’s Rules of Order. They do so without supporting evidence.
Past hearings have been fraught with difficulties, false charges, racist allegations, hypocrisy and despicable politics. As the battle looms it is worth recalling the advice of Sun Tzu: “If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”
In order to move forward successfully, a refresher on the past is in order:
Robert Bork (1987) Kevin Gutzman, then an intern for Congressman Dick Armey, described the hearing as having “all the makings of a circus.” Gutzman also described the men aligned against Judge Bork as being: “the Democratic majority on the Judiciary Committee, includ(ed) a chairman (Sen. Joe Biden) in the midst of a scandal over his having delivered a speech plagiarized from a British politician, one member (Patrick Leahy) who had been tossed off the Intelligence Committee by its Democratic chairman for leaking documents, another senator (Robert Byrd) who had been a Ku Klux Klansman, and Kennedy, infamous for being tossed out of Harvard for cheating”
Indeed the men who sat in judgement of Robert Bork had issues of their own, but as we know Democrats are as forgiving of themselves as they are unforgiving of the opposition.
Senator Kennedy fired a slanderous broadside against Bork:
“Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”
The well prepared speech had been on hold as the Democrats had been lying in wait for Bork’s expected nomination. The Republicans were stunned, and Bork, was ‘Borked’ and ultimately rejected 42-58. Judge Bork became the fourth Republican nominee rejected in the past 100 years. A Democratic president has not had a nominee rejected since 1894 when Wheeler Hazard Peckham was voted down by the Senate.
Clarence Thomas (1991) As ugly and as hard fought as the Bork hearing was, things got worse. Thomas, nominated to replace civil rights icon Thurgood Marshal, was seen as being too conservative and thus not ‘black enough’ for such an honor. In reality, Thomas was a person worthy of emulation: born dirt poor, a direct descendent of slaves, he fought discrimination while young including desegregating the high school he attended. Hard work, as well as dedication to his studies, allowed him to rise above lesser individuals who lacked his will, character, and intellect. None of that mattered to Democrats or their backers in the NAACP; Clarence Thomas was seen as a Tom, pure and simple, thus the knives came out to stab him in the back.
Having learned from the decimation Bork, Thomas treaded lightly with circumventive responses to loaded questions. The Baltimore Sun in its piece; “The Real Clarence Thomas?”described the testimony:
“Too often… he chose to retreat into such safe responses as, "I have to wait to read the briefs and hear the oral arguments." Too often he obfuscated when asked about prior writings.
[. . .]
As the hearing progressed the Democrats saw that they were losing this battle. Committee Chairmen Joe Biden’s questioning had failed to reveal a chink in the defensive armor of Thomas. The Democrats were reduced to bringing in a ringer; an unknown women named Anita Hill. Her testimony elicited the intended, feigned outrage, fueled by coordinated efforts. However, Thomas, now justifiably outraged, struck back:
“This is a circus. It’s a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.”
Thomas fought back and was confirmed by the narrowest of margins.
Miguel Estrada (2003) George Bush’s nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, was widely regarded as a prospect for a future appointment to the Supreme Court. If Clarence Thomas was not black enough for the left, Estrada was not brown enough. There are few things the left hates more than a person of color becoming, strong, well educated, successful, and Republican. People who rise above and desert them must be destroyed, least others get the same ideas that achievement is possible without the governmental largess of the Democrats. Best to nip this Estrada fellow in the bud as soon as possible.
The day before the committee vote the New York Times editorialized:
“Mr. Estrada, now a lawyer in Washington, also had an opportunity to elaborate on his views, and assuage senators' concerns, at his confirmation hearing, but he failed to do so. When asked his opinion about important legal questions, he dodged.”
Let’s be clear regarding the hearings of Bork versus that of Estrada: Bork was rejected, because he was honest in his wholly defendable legal views, while Estrada was rejected for evasiveness and lack of clarity regarding his views.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Keep the above point in mind also as pertains to the future testimony of President Obama’s nominee: Sotomayor.
Regarding the ‘wise Latina’s’ testimony the NY Times stated:
“She strove to be as circumspect about her views as possible, while the Senate Judiciary Committee members played their preset roles as defenders and interrogators.”
[. . .]
Sotomayor was confirmed, as well as Elena Kagan, who when combined with Ginsberg form a solid, unabashed trio of extreme left ideologues. All three were accepted by Senate Republicans with a minimum level of resistance.
Obama will take the rare opportunity to nominate someone as a replacement for Scalia. Democrats will fight hard for the candidate. However, the rules need to be applied fairly and equally to both sides, but they never are. The real problem is the Republicans have yet to come to that realization.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/before_the_fireworks_a_refresher_on_supreme_court_nominations.html

February 19, 2016
Before the Fireworks: A Refresher on Supreme Court Nominations
By Dennis Lund

Pat Buchanan: Leave Scalia's Seat on Supreme Court Vacant

Justice Antonin Scalia at Harvard University. "It was this big. Really."

[From article]
It is a measure of the stature and the significance of Justice Antonin Scalia that, upon the news of his death at a hunting lodge in Texas, Washington was instantly caught up in an unseemly quarrel over who would succeed him.
But no one can replace Justice Scalia.
He was a giant among jurists. For a third of a century, he led the conservative wing of the high court, creating a new school of judicial thought called “originalism.”
But originalism is not conservatism, which, in the judicial era that preceded Scalia, often meant court decisions that “conserved” the radical social revolution Earl Warren’s court had imposed upon us.
[. . .]
I remember being called into the office of White House Chief of Staff Don Regan, 30 years ago, to be informed that the judge whom Ronald Reagan would name to replace William Rehnquist, who had been named Chief Justice, would be U.S. Appellate Court Judge Antonin Scalia.
Regan was grinning at me as he made the announcement, and I let out of a whoop of victory.
[. . .]
The window for any Supreme Court nominees should be slammed shut — until 2017.
Republicans should tell our “transformative” president that his days of transforming America are over, that he will not be remaking the court into a bastion of the left after his departure, and that, while he has the right to nominate whom he wishes, the U.S. Senate will exercise its right to reject any nominee he sends up. If the court will then face many 4-4 decisions for the next year, so be it.
[. . .]
Republicans should tell the American people that when they vote in November they will be deciding not only the next president, not only which party shall control Congress, they will be deciding what kind of Supreme Court their country should have. Which is as it should be.
If the GOP can’t win this argument, they have lost the country.
http://buchanan.org/blog/leave-the-scalia-chair-vacant-124793

Leave the Scalia Chair Vacant
Monday - February 15, 2016 at 10:18 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Democratic Senators Opposed Recess Appointments To Supreme Court

Antonin Scalia

[From article]
David Bernstein at the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy blog:
Thanks to a VC commenter, I discovered that in August 1960, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a resolution, S.RES. 334, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.” Each of President Eisenhower’s SCOTUS appointments had initially been a recess appointment who was later confirmed by the Senate, and the Democrats were apparently concerned that Ike would try to fill any last-minute vacancy that might arise with a recess appointment.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/dems_in_senate_passed_a_resolution_in1960_against_election_year_supreme_court_appointments.html

February 14, 2016
Dems in Senate passed a resolution in1960 against election year Supreme Court appointments
By Thomas Lifson

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Dead at 79

The Supreme Court Justice was at the resort to attend a party on Friday, and didn't show up for breakfast the following morning.

[From article]
Senior Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead on Saturday in a luxury resort in West Texas, authorities say.
Scalia, 79, died of apparent natural causes while he stayed at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in the Big Bend region south of Marfa.
The Supreme Court Justice arrived at the ranch on Friday, where he then attended a private party with approximately 40 other people.
[. . .]
When he did not show up for breakfast in the morning, a person associated with the ranch found his body in his room.
The US Marshal Service, the Presidio County sheriff and the FBI are investigating Scalia's death.
There was no evidence of foul play, a federal official who requested not to be named, told My San Antonio.
US District Judge Fred Biery said he was notified of Scalia's death on Saturday morning.
'I was told it was this morning,' Biery told My San Antonio of Scalia's death. 'It happened on a ranch out near Marfa. As far as the details, I think it's pretty vague right now as to how.
'My reaction is it's very unfortunate. It's unfortunate with any death, and politically in the presidential cycle we're in, my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected.'
[. . .]
Scalia was nominated to the US Supreme Court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan and is the longest-serving justice on the Court.
Texas Gov Greg Abbott called Scalia an 'unwavering defender of the written Constitution' in a statement about the Justice's death.
'He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution,' Abbott said. 'We mourn his passing, and we pray that his successor on the Supreme Court will take his place as a champion for the written Constitution and the Rule of Law.
'Cecilia and I extend our deepest condolences to his family, and we will keep them in our thoughts and prayers.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3445976/Associate-Justice-Antonin-Scalia-dies-natural-causes-luxury-Texas-resort-aged-79.html

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies of natural causes in luxury Texas resort, aged 79
Scalia, 79, died of apparent natural causes at the Cibolo Creek Ranch south of Marfa, Texas, on Saturday
The Supreme Court Justice was at the resort to attend a party on Friday
When he didn't show up for breakfast on Saturday, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body
Scalia was nominated to the US Supreme Court in 1986 and is the longest-serving justice
By KELLY MCLAUGHLIN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:58 EST, 13 February 2016 | UPDATED: 17:15 EST, 13 February 2016

US Courts Work During Presidential Primary Campaigns

[From article]
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a major blow to President Barack Obama by blocking federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, the centerpiece of his administration's strategy to combat climate change.
On a 5-4 vote, the court granted a request made by 27 states and various companies and business groups to block the administration's Clean Power Plan. The move means the regulations will not be in effect while litigation continues over whether their legality.
[. . .]



The 27 states opposing President Obama's regulations are acting in self defense. In other words, these states, including West Virginia, need these plants to create jobs.
The Obama administration did not consult these states and try to find some common ground, a reasonable point between concern for the environment and paychecks.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/the_other_big_story_of_the_day.html

February 11, 2016
The other big story of the day
By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Supreme Court Of The United States Hears Free Speech Case

[From Court]
Question
Does the First Amendment prohibit the government from demoting a public employee based on a supervisor’s perception that the employee supports a political candidate?

Facts of the case
Jeffrey Heffernan was a police officer for the City of Paterson, New Jersey. A fellow police officer observed Heffernan picking up a campaign sign for the mayoral candidate running against the incumbent. When a supervisor confronted him, Heffernan claimed that he was not politically involved, could not vote in the City of Paterson, and was picking up the sign on behalf of his mother. Heffernan was demoted to a walking post because his actions were considered to be “overt involvement in political activities.” Heffernan sued the City of Paterson and claimed that the City had violated his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech association. However, the City filed a motion for summary judgment on Heffernan’s free association claim. The district court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment because there was no evidence Heffernan associated himself with the political candidate at issue. Heffernan admitted himself, that he was not associated with the candidate, therefore there is no evidence of a violation of free association. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/14-1280
Heffernan v. City of Paterson
ORAL ARGUMENT - JANUARY 19, 2016



* * *

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/heffernan-v-paterson-and-an-absurd-first-amendment-doctrine

JANUARY 20, 2016
Heffernan v. Paterson and an Absurd First Amendment Doctrine
BY GILAD EDELMAN

* * *

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/430076/dancing-dark-heffernan-v-city-paterson

Oral Arguments in Heffernan v. City of Paterson: Dancing in the Dark
by JONATHAN KEIM

January 20, 2016 4:42 PM

@JONATHANKEIM

* * *

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/24/demoted-nj-cops-first-amendment-case-divides-supreme-court.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Demoted NJ cop's First Amendment case divides Supreme Court
Published January 24, 2016

FoxNews.com

History of Union Dues, and The Supreme Court of The United States

[From article]
The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering a case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, brought by ten teachers in California, concerning the First Amendment to the Constitution. The teachers oppose the requirement forcing public sector workers to support unions. They want the Court to overrule the 1977 case, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that allows unions to levy charges on non-members of unions. Some 23 states, mostly Democratic, and the District of Columbia allow such charges to occur.
The objection of the California teachers, is based on two factors: opposition to the political position that unions take; and simple refusal to join a union if inclined to see unions as unnecessary or irrelevant.
[. . .]



The crux of the issue is whether it is unconstitutional for a non-member of the unions to be made to pay for union activities that, among other things, involve not only activities that benefit the non-member, such as negotiating for higher wages and benefits, but in addition involve activities that may be abhorrent to the non-member. The latter involves the First Amendment: should individuals be forced to contribute to avocation of positions with which they disagree?
In the Abood case, the Supreme Court made a fine line distinction. On one hand, it held that it was a violation of the First Amendment for unions to make non-members pay for political activities. On the other hand, it was constitutional for union to obtain a fee from non-members to help pay for collective bargaining activities.
Abood has since been qualified in a number of cases. In a limited ruling on June 30, 2014, in Harris v. Quinn, Governor of Illinois, the Court narrowly held, 5-4, that partial public employees, such as homecare aides who are paid by Medicaid, cannot be required to contribute to union fees.
Similarly, political actions have limited union powers and funds. The Michigan right to work law of March 2013 prohibited new contracts from requiring union dues as a condition of employment, and another Michigan law prohibits school districts from deducting union dues for salaries of teachers. The impact was immediate. Union membership fell by 50,000 in one year.
[. . .]
About one-third of public sectors employees belong to unions compared to six per cent of private sector employees.
[. . .]



Since 1913, trade unions in Britain can maintain political funds. [. . .] there has been a historic connection for over a century between the two. Trade unions provide about 20 per cent of the funding of the party. [. . .] However, union members could “contract out” of the affiliation and therefore not pay the fee. Those who do not “contract out,” cannot decide on the use of their individual contribution. The use of political funds is a matter of union policy.
The system was changed as result of the General Strike in 1927. Parliament passed the Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act that replaced opting or contracting out with “contracting in,” meaning that those who wanted to contribute to affiliation had to make a positive decision in favor of it.
The result was a catastrophic drop in union membership. In 1947, the Labour government reintroduced the “contracting out” requirement, with the predictable result that affiliation of union membership increased from 39 per cent to 60 per cent within two years.
[. . .]
The British Parliament today is currently debating the issue of requiring “contracting in” or “opting in” to pay the levy to the Labour Party. The decision is important because of the sustained decline in union membership from 13.2 million in 1979 to 7.5 million today.
[. . .]
There is of course a difference between rights and obligations, and the issue of free speech, in Britain and in the U.S. [. . .] In the U.S. the issues are more problematic due to the rights granted by the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment. From early hearings it is likely that the Supreme Court in Friedrichs will again narrowly decide this major issue. But one may predict that, whatever the decision, union membership in the U.S. will decline as it has done in Britain.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/the_state_of_the_unions.html

January 17, 2016
The State of the Unions
By Michael Curtis

Democratic Party Elitism Eliminates Power Of the People

[From article]
The great American experiment is based on the revolutionary idea that power flows from the people not the government; the rights of people granted by the Creator, not the Divine right of kings.
Lincoln encapsulated that when he said:
…government of the people, by the people, for the people…
The Constitution defines a government where the people exercise power by electing -- and getting rid of -- politicians.
[. . .]
America is no longer a country run by a government of the people. Decades of fascist maneuvering by Democrats has destroyed the representational nature of American government and disenfranchised the people.



The elimination of people power began with the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the idea of the “living” Constitution; i.e., the idea that the Constitution means whatever 5 judges thinks it means rather than what the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution thought it meant.
[. . .]
the Court imposed on America its personal morality. A court that decides what it thinks the Constitution should mean is no different in nature than a monarch such as King George III;
[. . .]
Recently the Court has solidified its power by declaring that citizens don’t have the right to sue when politicians don’t enforce the laws passed by the people directly. Seven million Californians passed Prop 8 that declared that marriage was between a man and a woman. The fascist Democrat politicians of California, including Jerry Brown, refused to defend the people’s law showing that Democrats do not believe that power flows from the people. But if the people don’t have standing to demand that the laws they pass be enforced clearly the people, in the eyes of the Supreme Court, have no power.
Similarly, Eric Holder and Obama declared themselves above the law by refusing to enforce DOMA -- and encouraging state attorneys-general to do the same. Clearly, if politicians can pick and choose which laws to follow, the people have no power, since even if they manage to get laws enacted, the people have no assurance that their “rulers” will follow those laws.
Of course, Obama’s imperial presidency and his refusal to act as though there are any Constitutional restraints on his personal power also work to remove the people from the decision-making process.
[. . .]



The final step in disenfranchising the American people and making them subjects of a new royal class composed of government bureaucrats, judges, and politicians has been the rise of what’s called administrative law; rules created by unelected government workers that Americans must follow.
In America today, if Democrats think that men accused of rape on college campuses should be denied due process they need not pass a law, rather they only need an unelected and essentially unfireable government bureaucrat to write a letter to colleges threatening to remove all federal funding unless men’s due process is removed.
[. . .]
The elimination of people power helps explains why the Democrat agenda advances despite electoral wins by Republicans. While many Republicans are in fact more interested in the donor class than the people, the reality is that under the government described by the Constitution, Democrats could not just stonewall. To advance their agenda Democrats would have to compromise.
Gridlock is the result not of partisanship but of the institutionalization of Democrat power through the Courts and administrative law -- and of course Obama’s executive orders.
[. . .]



If anyone doubts that Americans are now controlled by their masters in government, they only need look at the fact that not only do government workers have job security, something the people don’t have in the Obama economy, but that they earn 78% more, on average, than the people. Liberals claim that that’s because government jobs require more skills than private sector jobs.
[. . .]
In the Soviet Union, the nomenklatura, the ruling class, was marked by its special privileges and its higher pay, just like government employees and politicians in America today. Following the money tells us who are the rulers and who are the ruled in America today.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/returning_power_to_the_people.html

January 16, 2016
Returning Power to the People
By Tom Trinko

Is White House Ruling Using Domestic Espionage and Extortion?

[From article]
concerned about his nuke deal with Iran, directed the National Security Agency to spy on Israel, American Jewish groups, and friends of Israel in the U.S. Congress.
For eight years, in addition to displaying open hostility toward the Jewish state, here in America, the president has pushed the boundaries on everything from limiting First and Second Amendment rights to passing a failed stimulus package to ramming through healthcare reform to making a nuclear deal with Iran to promising amnesty to illegal aliens.
[. . .]
Now, after learning that the Executive branch of the U.S. government spied on the Legislative branch, it’s less confusing as to why the former Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH), and his compadre in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), seemed so reticent in resisting this president.
[. . .]
Chicago-style coercion may be what caused teary-eyed Boehner to consistently fold like a cheap lawn chair.
Next up: Kevin McCarthy the Republican from California who was the shoo-in to replace Boehner.
After receiving an email from a “conservative activist” that threatened to expose an alleged extramarital affair, McCarthy withdrew his candidacy to be Speaker.
[. . .]
Unfortunately, somewhere between 2011 and 2016 Ryan lost his determination. Suddenly, the solutions the new speaker criticized so strongly in the past have become solutions he seems willing to live with.
Atrocities such as the $1.1 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill, which subsidizes the president’s plan to accept into America Syrian refugees
[. . .]
the spending bill contains provisions totaling over $1 billion to help fund the implementation of the same healthcare reform bill the new speaker spoke harshly against just five years earlier.
Speaking of surveillance and Obamacare, let’s not forget Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ baffling decision that doubled down on defying the Constitution and helped pave the way for socialized medicine.
Now, The Wall Street Journal’s eye-opening piece titled: “U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress” may shed light on why two branches of the U.S. government have rolled over and accommodated Obama on every front.
According to the article, Barack Obama employed the NSA to spy on foreign leaders like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Bibi Netanyahu, a practice he promised to discontinue doing to “friendly heads of state” two years ago.
[. . .]
During the Iran deal negotiations, the NSA also listened in and reported back to the president conversations Benjamin Netanyahu had with friends in Congress. So, while targeting our allies, also “swept up …were the… content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers.”
[. . .]
could the majority party’s consistent pusillanimous posture be based on their knowledge that America’s first black male president blackmails those he considers enemies in Congress? And didn’t Richard Nixon resign for much less?
Based on the seriousness of the spying accusation, if true, Barack Obama should step down or be impeached, which may require the Republicans in Congress to pull up their pants, place concern for self aside, and finally do something that’s long overdue -- put the survival of America first.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/obama_spies_on_his_enemies_in_congress.html

January 6, 2016
Obama Spies on His Enemies in Congress
By Jeannie DeAngelis

Supreme Court of The United States Scrutinizes Affirmative Action Again

[From article]
Affirmative action is before the Supreme Court yet again. This time it is the University of Texas in the hot seat; soon it might be Harvard defending itself against credible charges that its admission policies discriminate against Asian applicants.
The essence of these cases is whether everyone is to be treated the same in college admissions or if some people are to be treated differently.
[. . .]
The crucial difference is this: You’re either born into it or it is earned.
Since colleges serve a crucial sorting function in American life, what happens there is extended into American society at large. Is America a meritocracy, as we were all taught and would like to believe, or is it just another aristocracy? Increasingly, we seem to be going down the European aristocratic road, with predictably decadent and degenerating results visible to all insightful observers of our distant ruling class.
[. . .]



Nothing destroys motivation and a belief in the fairness of the system like an entrenched aristocracy.
Elite colleges like to portray themselves as meritocracies.
[. . .]
Eliminating aristocratic preferences based on race also means eliminating aristocratic legacy preferences for the children of alumni and the children of the rich and well connected. Fair is fair. It’s the same thing: awarding people things based on the luck of whomever they happen to be related to.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/college_admissions_aristocracy_or_meritocracy.html

December 19, 2015
College admissions: aristocracy or meritocracy?
By Bonnie K. Snyder

Supreme Court And Power Hungry Lawyers Usurp Power

[From article]
In a supermarket checkout line, a copy of Time magazine bore the headline "The Supreme Court: Decisions That Changed America."
That headline tells us that the U.S. is no longer a representative republic.
As Lincoln pointed out, under the Constitution, the American government is "of the people, for the people, and by the people." That's why all laws are supposed to come from the people's elected representatives. If laws don't come from the Congress, the government is no longer of the people, but over the people.
If Americans want America changed, they have agreed, through the Constitution, that the process requires that the changes be done by their elected representatives. If Americans wish to change that process and give up their rights, they can amend the Constitution, as defined in the Constitution.
[. . .]



What Time is celebrating is precisely the unconstitutional experiment in judicial tyranny that Americans have been living under for more than 60 years.
The people's representatives have never passed a law legalizing abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy, nor have they passed a law that legalized gay marriage. If they had, then there would be laws, not Supreme Court rulings, that "changed America" on these issues.
Similarly, the legalization of pornography – and the resulting exploitation of people as objects to be used rather than as people to be loved – and the transformation of the "justice" system from one that seeks to punish the guilty and free the innocent into one that cares only if minute procedural rules are followed, even if that means the guilty are freed to prey on the innocent, were not accomplished through the will of the people. They were accomplished by rich, mostly white, mostly male Supreme Court judges.
[. . .]
But if history has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that in time, forces not to the liking of modern liberals will hold the reins of the Supreme Court. Hence, transferring power to the judiciary and away from the people will eventually hurt all Americans, no matter their political persuasion.
Liberals may not care, however, since they know that conservative judges will not abuse power the way liberal judges do, just as they don't care that the Obama presidency is far more imperial than Nixon's was. Sadly, far too many modern liberals are quite comfortable with justifying the means by the ends.
[. . .]
Ask them if they really want to live in a semi-monarchy where lawyers have the final say in defining what America is.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/time_magazine_declares_america_no_longer_a_republic.html

December 8, 2015
Time Magazine Declares: America No Longer a Republic
By Tom Trinko

Updated: Court Procedure May Influence Immigration Decision; Texas Granted 8-Day Extension

Posted November 25, 2015 11:02 AM ET; Last updated December 2, 2015 9:18 PM ET

[From article]

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Texas’s request for a 30-day extension to file its opening brief on President Barack Obama’s deferred-deportation program, in a move that leaves open the possibility the high court will rule on the plan next year.
The justices gave Texas an eight-day delay, heeding calls from the Obama administration to keep the case on track for a potential decision by the end of the court’s term in June. The administration is seeking review after a federal appeals court blocked the program.
Under the court’s normal scheduling practices, a 30-day delay would have prevented consideration of the case until the court’s next term starts in October 2016. The court gave no explanation for the decision, and there were no recorded dissents.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-01/texas-rebuffed-by-top-u-s-court-on-immigration-filing-deadline

Immigration Case on Track for 2016 Supreme Court Ruling
GregStohr
December 1, 2015 — 5:02 PM EST
Updated on December 1, 2015 — 5:41 PM EST
* * *

[From article]
The court could act imminently on a request by Texas and 25 other states for a 30-day extension of the deadline to respond to the administration’s bid for a hearing.
While in other contexts that request would be routine, it has taken on heightened importance because of the realities of the court’s calendar and the administration’s desire to revive the program before Obama leaves office next year.
If the court grants the request, the justices would have to deviate from their normal scheduling practices to consider the case during the nine-month term that ends in June. The administration says the court should allow only an 8-day extension to ensure the case can be heard this term.
A delay would "prolong for an additional year the disruption of federal immigration policy," U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the court in a letter Tuesday. He said that if the court grants the full extension, he will ask for a rare May argument session so that the case can be decided in the current term.
The program would shield as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and let them obtain work and some public benefits. The plan, which was announced a year ago but hasn’t taken effect, applies to people whose children are either U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents and who meet other requirements.
A federal appeals court blocked the plan, ruling 2-1 that Obama was overstepping his authority.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-11-24/obama-s-immigration-plan-hinges-on-top-u-s-court-deadline-clash

Obama's Immigration Plan Hinges on Supreme Court Deadline Clash
GregStohr
Bloomberg.com
November 24, 2015 — 6:49 PM EST

Supreme Court of US Affirms Independent Arizona Commission to Set Congressional Boundaries

[From article]
The case challenged a state constitutional amendment adopted in 2000 by Arizona voters which created a politically neutral commission drawing new boundaries for the state’s congressional districts every ten years. Before the amendment, the state legislature, as in many states, had been responsible for setting and adjusting district lines.
[. . .]
Affirming the district court’s decision, the Supreme Court also rejected the Arizona legislature’s “wooden” interpretation of the Election Clause. In doing so, the Court preserved a valuable tool used by citizens across the country to reform redistricting practices.
[. . .]
Efforts to adopt similar sorts of reforms are currently underway in Illinois, Ohio, and South Dakota – with Arizona and California frequently serving as models for proposed reforms.

https://www.brennancenter.org/legal-work/arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission

Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (Amicus Brief)
June 29, 2015

Lawyers, Politicians, Judges Corrupt The English Langauge To Enable Sale Of Fetuses

[From article]
Executives of Planned Parenthood’s federally subsidized meat markets — your tax dollars at work — lack the courage of their convictions. They should drop the pretense of conducting a complex moral calculus about the organs they harvest from the babies they kill.
First came the video showing a salad-nibbling, wine-sipping Planned Parenthood official explaining how “I’m going to basically crush below, I’m going to crush above” whatever organ (“heart, lung, liver”) is being harvested. Then the president of a Planned Parenthood chapter explained the happy side of harvesting: “For a lot of the women participating in the fetal tissue donation program, they’re having a procedure that may be a very difficult decision for them and this is a way for them to feel that something positive is coming from . . . a very difficult time.”
[. . .]



In 1973, the Supreme Court, simultaneously frivolous and arrogant, discovered constitutional significance in the fact that the number nine is divisible by three. It decreed that the status of pre-born human life changes with pregnancy’s trimesters. (What would abortion law be if the number of months of gestation were a prime number — seven or 11?) The court followed this preposterous assertion with faux humility, insisting it could not say when life begins. Then, swerving back to breathtaking vanity, it declared when “meaningful” life begins — “viability,” when the fetus is “potentially able” to survive outside the womb.
When life begins is a scientific, not a philosophic or theological, question: Life begins when the chromosomes of the sperm fuse with those of the ovum, forming a distinctive DNA complex that controls the new organism’s growth. This growth process continues unless a natural accident interrupts it or it is ended by the sort of deliberate violence Planned Parenthood sells.
[. . .]
Even partial-birth abortion is — must be — a sacrament in the Church of “Choice.” This sect knows that its entire edifice depends on not yielding an inch on its insistence that what an abortion kills never possesses a scintilla of moral significance.
In partial-birth abortion, a near-term baby is pulled by the legs almost out of the birth canal, until the base of the skull is exposed so the abortionist can suck out its contents. During Senate debates on this procedure, three Democrats were asked: Suppose a baby’s head slips out of the birth canal — the baby is born — before the abortionist can kill it. Does the baby then have a right to live? Two of the Democrats refused to answer. The third said the baby acquires a right to life when it leaves the hospital.
[. . .]

 

We are wallowing in this moral swamp because the Supreme Court accelerated the desensitization of the nation by using words and categories about abortion the way infants use knives and forks — with gusto, but sloppily. Because Planned Parenthood’s snout is deep in the federal trough, decent taxpayers find themselves complicit in the organization’s vileness. What kind of a government disdains the deepest convictions of citizens by forcing them to finance what they see in videos — Planned Parenthood operatives chattering about bloody human fragments? “Taxes,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., “are what we pay for civilized society.” Today they finance barbarism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-barbarity-of-a-nation/2015/07/31/344f5140-36eb-11e5-9739-170df8af8eb9_story.html

Planned Parenthood and the barbarity of America
By George F. Will
July 31, 2015 at 9:19 PM